All’s not well in the land of BuzzFeed. The digital media company just fired about 100 staffers – roughly 7% of its workforce. The company is also planning some big changes to its monetization efforts, according to an announcement from CEO Jonah Peretti. (Indeed, most of the new layoffs hit BuzzFeed’s ad sales and business operations teams.) In a memo to staff, Peretti indicated that BuzzFeed will now expand its efforts to areas such as e-commerce and programmatic ad sales, as opposed to just native advertising. As part of the reorganization, BuzzFeed President Greg Coleman will vacate his position, though he’ll stay on as an advisor. The company’s drastic new measures aren’t terribly surprising: Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that the company is on track to fall 15 to 20 percent short of its 2017 revenue projections.

After Snap Inc.’s disastrous Q3 earnings report, CEO Evan Spiegel promised a redesigned Snapchat app that would be more accessible to users. Now the company has previewed the changes, which will roll out to a limited number of users over the course of this week. According to the company, the new version of the app is designed to more clearly divide media content from content that comes from friends, making it easier for users to keep the two separate. The company also says it will spend 2018 focusing on ways to give Snapchat creators better means of distributing and monetizing their content. For a closer look at the redesign, hop on down to the Digital Spotlight section.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Amazon Web Services just unveiled DeepLens, a wireless video camera that can make use of “deep learning” – an advanced branch of machine learning in which a computer teaches itself with minimal input from programmers. The camera can run custom A.I. models to execute tasks such as sentiment analysis, facial recognition, and object identification. The DeepLens doesn’t come particularly cheap; it’ll sell for $249. It’s scheduled to ship in April 2018.

As the DeepLens camera makes clear, there are endless applications for A.I. And for TV pros, advertisers, and marketers, the technology is getting more important by the day. You still have time to register for the December 6 Cynopsis Webinar, Using Artificial Intelligence to Capture & Captivate Audiences. Learn everything you need to know about how to integrate A.I. into your media strategy. Speakers will include experts from IBM Watson Advertising, Scripps, Mindshare, and ZoneTV. Register here.

PLATFORMS + APPS

Facebook isn’t the only platform knocking off Snapchat these days. YouTube announced Reels, a new video format that bears a not-so-subtle similarity to Snapchat’s Stories product. One place where the Reels format will be available to creators is through YouTube’s “community” tab. Speaking of which, YouTube announced that the community tab is now available to any channel with 10,000 subscribers or more. The community feature lets creators poll fans, promote content, and offer previews of soon-to-launch videos.

NBC just launched a TV Everywhere app for Vizio SmartCast TVs. Authenticated pay-TV subs will be able to use the app to stream episodes of NBC TV shows. It’s not the first video app to hit Vizio’s SmartCast platform; others include Netflix, Amazon Video, Hulu, and Crackle.

Digital music streaming service iHeartRadio is now available through Comcast’s Xfinity X1 platform. In addition, a new feature – set to roll out over the coming weeks – will enable customers of both services to launch iHeartRadio, and browse through its stations, using their voice remote.

OTT-based live TV services, or “virtual MVPDs,” won’t dominate the pay-TV market anytime soon – but their reach is steadily growing. That’s the conclusion of a new report from research firm The Diffusion Group ( TDG), which estimates that virtual MVPDs will reach about 14% of the pay TV market by 2030. (Today, by comparison, it’s closer to 4%.) Virtual MVPD growth notwithstanding, TDG finds that the pay-TV market as a whole will decrease by 7% over that same time period. The firm estimates that, by 2030, 30 million U.S. households will have no multi-channel pay-TV service whatsoever, be it virtual or traditional. TDG estimates that the traditional linear pay TV market will shrink by 26% over that time period, reaching only 60% of U.S. households by 2030.

VIRTUAL + AUGMENTED REALITY

Syfy is promoting Happy!, its upcoming series, with a new augmented reality app. (The app’s launch was first reported by Variety.) The series, which debuts on December 6, centers on a hit man who one day begins to see a cheerful, winged unicorn – appropriately named Happy – wherever he goes. The app, not surprisingly, aims to bring that experience to users, who can use their smartphones to view and interact with Happy within real-world environments. As in the series, actor/comedian Patton Oswalt provides Happy’s voice. The app is now available for both Android and iOS devices.

MEASURING UP

Tubular Top Ten Global Sponsored Videos Monday, November 20, 2017 – Sunday, November 26, 2017. Based on Tubular Video Ratings measuring 8 million video publishers, 3 billion videos, and 400 million viewers. Sponsored videos are ranked by V3, total views in the first three days after upload.

Canvs, the emotion measurement company, analyzed tweets about TV and streaming programming from Nov. 22-28 using Twitter data from Nielsen. Check out their findings below.

EXECUTIVE MOVES

RYOT, the branded content group owned by Verizon’s Oath unit, is losing one of its co-founders. Molly DeWolf Swenson, who also serves as RYOT’s Head of Brand, announced that she will leave Oath by the end of 2017. DeWolf Swenson co-founded RYOT in 2012, serving as its Chief Operating Officer until 2016. The company was sold to the Huffington Post (a subsidiary of Verizon’s AOL before AOL and its properties were integrated into Oath) in 2016. DeWolf Swenson said her decision to leave came “after a number of months of reflections on my personal ambitions.” She made the announcement at Variety’s Innovate Summit.

Follow-up: Who are the two co-creators of The Ranch? (Email trivia@cynopsis.comwith your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and state.)

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

Getting Maximum Impact from Experiential Marketing

Cynopsis Webinar |Tuesday, January 30, 2018 | 1:30pm

The more that millennials turn away from traditional advertising, combined with the downward trend of TV ratings, the smarter it is for marketers to create experiential events that build brand awareness and drive loyalty through one-on-one connections with consumers. Learn how to execute experiences that will resonate with your target audience and supercharge your story in this essential webinar.

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